Restless Heart Syndrome
by MandraKara
Summary: 2 years after the events of Scream 3. Some ghosts are just harder to chase away than others. Especially with the scars to prove it. Gale/Dewey POV.


...why yes, that title does happen to be from a Green Day song.

I wasn't going to write this at all, or if I did I certainly wasn't going to post it anywhere. And then when my decision on that changed, I wasn't going to upload this yet because it seemed short and I was going to try to put it all into a oneshot. But now it seems that plan has failed and it's either going to be in two parts or three. The reason this was written was because a plot bunny attacked me and wouldn't leave me alone. Something bothered me about the fact that Tatum was completely forgotten about by the time Scream 2 and 3 came around. Yes, I can understand coping, but you'd have to feel some kind of remorse, right?

Any conflicts and confusion, etc, will be posted in the bottom author's note, so let's just...yeah.

* * *

There's just something about mornings that tends to piss me off. It isn't as though it's a lack of sleep or anything so trivial, it's just the way I am. It's a bit ironic actually, since my husband and I seem to differ completely in that area. And that's why it surprised me that it was 9:00AM and I was awake and making breakfast before he had even shown signs of life. I thought to ask if he was ill, but decided against waking him since it seemed a bit odd. He wouldn't admit to illness or fatigue regardless, so best to let him sleep comfortably while he can.

That's one trait Dewey and I have always had in common; keeping hardheaded in a situation where someone questions anything about us. Being that I am a journalist and a reporter, I can't allow myself to let others think that I'm soft or weak. I have to be willing to go to any extent to get the story. Any story in our area, I should say. Dewey and I already had a falling out once when my job became more important than relationships and I left town. But that's a whole different story that I don't care to think about now that we're married.

Dewey, on the other hand, can be serious and mature one moment and a complex goofball the next. He once told the 'fake me', Jennifer Jolie, that I was a "lost and lonely little girl inside", but sometimes I find that he would be better off referring to himself as a 'lost and lonely child' inside. He changed a lot after our first break up; no longer speaking with a tone of child-like innocence, and he now had the ability to hold strong in almost any given situation, especially when the need to protect another arises. But he doesn't really like to talk about change, and he insists that it's merely age catching up with him. But he's only 32 years old. Sometimes I wonder...

Speaking of Dewey, I hear a soft thump on the stairs leading down from our bedroom and I realize that he's finally awake. When we first went looking for a house, I tried to insist we find one that didn't have stairs everywhere since the poor guy still has a limp from years prior. But Dewey doesn't like being babied and insisted that anything was fine. He doesn't like to talk about it, but somewhere underneath that passive exterior I believe that he sincerely hopes that people don't notice it.

"Good morning, Dewey." I greet him as he enters the kitchen, and I have to double-take at him. Something seems off even as he leans over to plant a kiss on my cheek before taking a seat at the kitchen table. His dark brown hair is devoid of its usual gel and something about his expression seems almost sullen.

"Rough night?" I asked, scooping eggs out of the frying pan with a spatula and sliding them onto a plate next to a piece of toast.

"Something like that." he replied, receiving the plate with a grateful nod. He didn't seem all that enthusiastic about it, but his expression remained it's usually calm, he didn't like me to worry. I picked up my own plate and sat down across from him, eyes fixed on the plate rather than on him.

"So, the weather channel says it's going to be a nice day outside today." I stated nonchalantly, trying to initiate conversation. "Of course, I would know. I'm the one with the meteorologist name." Seriously, who named their daughter Gale Weathers?

Dewey chuckled softly though it sounded a bit forced, and as my gaze shifted up to him something else caught my attention; he was rubbing his lower back with his free hand almost subconsciously. I've known his old wound to act up every once in a while, he likes to joke that it's a foreshadowing of the weather similar to how old folks claim they can predict a storm because they feel it in their bones. I had thought his footsteps sounded heavier than usual, but I had shrugged it off as maybe he was still half asleep.

"Are you alright?" I asked, setting my fork down and making to get up, my expression a mixture of calm and concern. "Do you need an aspirin or something?"

He dropped his hand slowly before waving it in a more Dewey-like shrug-off manner. Almost as though either he hadn't realized he was doing it, or he had expected me not to notice. "Nah, I'm fine. I already took something." He insisted, helping himself to his toast. It was his way of non-verbally stating that the conversation was over. Somehow I doubted his words were truthful, but I didn't want to press my luck, what with how easy it was for the two of us to find ourselves in an argument. It had been two years since the killings on the set of Stab 3, and I was starting to believe that we were finally safe. I just had to hope Dewey's wound acting up wasn't a sign of things to come like he often claimed it was.

Leaving the former Deputy to his breakfast, I glanced up at the calendar on the wall to check what was on the agenda for the day. There was nothing written. I was about to make a suggestion when something else struck me; today was the anniversary of the Woodsboro Murders. That was why Dewey's wound was suddenly acting up, why his personality seemed off. Before I could say anything, the former cop's serious brown eyes locked on mine, freezing whatever thoughts had just entered my mind before I could voice them.

"Don't say it, Gale." was all he said, his face in its serious cop-on-duty expression. But I knew better. It was a defensive form of begging. I didn't like that Dewey had to play defensive with me, so despite his words I replied, "Dewey, you can't pretend like it never happened. It was eight years ago, we've moved on."

Something in the former deputy's face looked almost betrayed, and his hand moved to massage the old stab wound again. "That's easy for you to say. You didn't lose your little sister."

For the second time in mere minutes I find my thoughts frozen. Dewey more often than not refuses to speak about Tatum Riley, the fifth victim of the Woodsboro Murders, and his seven years his junior sister. The only time Tatum comes up in conversation is when he has a happier memory of her to share.

"In fact," he adds, narrowing his eyes. "All you did was write a book about it. And if my description was flawed, imagine how flawed you made my sister's."

I noticed he seemed unable to voice her name after all this time. Unless he had been the one to start the conversation, and he certainly couldn't voice anything regarding her murder, he wouldn't even speak of his own stabbing that night.

"So it was wrong of me to assume that Tatum was drunk which gave her the idea that she could escape through the cat flap?" I asked, ignoring the annoying nagging feeling in the back of my mind that sarcasm was only going to push him further into isolation from the topic.

Dewey continued to stare at me for a moment, his expression blank against the glimmer of pain in his eyes. Finally he placed both hands on the table using it for support as he climbed to feet, the pain made more apparent by a masked wince and the clenching of his teeth. He didn't seem to be in any shape to be up and moving around but I wasn't exactly going to stop him.

"No, Gale Weathers can think whatever she wants to because she's Gale Weathers, the hero of the Woodsboro Murders." he grumbled, turning away from me.

"Dewey, you know that isn't what I meant..." I tried to insist, but he wasn't listening anymore. Part of me didn't blame him; I had no right to taunt him about Tatum on the anniversary of her death even eight years later. I was no more proud of my book than he was, to be honest, which is why after two books I stopped writing.

"If you'll excuse me..." Dewey said in an almost eerie forced calm, heading for the side door of the kitchen. "I'd like to be alone for a bit. I'll be back later."

There was nothing I could do other than mumble, "Take all the time you need..." and watch him leave. To be honest, I didn't want him to go anywhere. Psychopaths were known for springing up at random moments, and the anniversary of the first two killings was as good a time as any for another one to appear. Not to mention, his limp was worse than usual and I was beginning to wonder if it wasn't just from nostalgia, if maybe something was physically wrong with him. But he wanted to be left alone. I'd have to compromise; give him his alone time before I went looking for him.

* * *

If there are things in here that don't make sense, I apologize. For starters...

-I have no idea how much time passes between movies. In Scream Dewey tells Gale that he's 25 years old, and from Scream to Scream 2 is two years, therefore he's 27. From Scream 2 to Scream 3, I couldn't recall how many years had passed, but going from the release dates (Scream 2 1997 - Scream 3 2000), would make him 30. And it's been two years after that the story takes place, so he should be 32. As for Gale's age, it isn't mentioned in the movies, and it didn't seem as relevant to her thoughts.

-Same with Tatum's age. She and Sidney were seniors, we can assume, which makes her either 17 or 18. I chose 18 just because, which makes a 7 year age gap between the two Riley siblings.

-I also had no idea if Dewey's wound was capable of acting up or not. Just like I've yet to comprehend how being stabbed in the back and severing a nerve causes you to limp...but we're going to pretend it's all possible because otherwise half of my plot goes out of the window. C:

-Despite Gale's saying, "I'm the one with the meteorologist name." I'm fairly certain by this point her name would be Gale Weathers-Riley, just like Courtney went from Courtney Cox to Courtney Cox Arquette when she and David married. The point of her comment was to simply jump back to the joke in the first Scream where Dewey explains that his real name is Dwight and that his nickname proves that the town doesn't take him seriously, to which Gale responds that her name makes her sound like a meteorologist. (And it does, I thought that the moment I first heard it XD)

Questions, comments, reviews, whatever. XD


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